In the ultra-competitive modern business environment, organizations strive for any concept or process that may afford them an advantage over their rivals. This includes making improvements to customer-facing systems and procedures that are designed to increase the attractiveness of a particular product or service. There are direct and measurable benefits to keeping the customers satisfied that are reflected in a company’s financial well-being.
What is sometimes overlooked when searching for ways to become more competitive are the behind the scenes business processes that are a necessary part of delivering a quality product. Finding ways to streamline or improve these procedures can have a drastic effect on a business’s bottom line. Business process modeling (BPM) is a strategy intended to assist in understanding and refining the processes that drive an enterprise.
Why Use Business Process Modeling?
Simply put, business process modeling is the creation of a model of a business process that can be used to gain a better understanding of its operation. Here are a few of the many instances where an organization can benefit from developing BPMs.
- Coordinating the complexity of business and data processes that need to be assimilated into the corporate structure following a merger or acquisition can be done with BPMs.
- BPMs can be used to identify data stewards and the information that they can access.
- Models offer a viable method of consolidating and relating terms from diverse departments to data objects following a corporate restructuring.
The graphical nature of business process models makes them more easily accessible to stakeholders than reams of documents. They fit perfectly with the visualization techniques being used to address the flood of data affecting many areas of modern business.
What You Need in Business Process Modeling Tools
There are some features that distinguish a quality BPM tool from less robust options. Some of the most important features to look for include:
- A metadata repository that allows the relationships between business processes and data to be exported into multiple formats to facilitate sharing across different teams.
- Change impact analysis enables organizations to identify interrelationships between processes, data, stewards, and connecting objects.
- Complying with BPMN 2.0 standards may be a consideration for an enterprise and should be incorporated into the tool used to create the models.
- Documenting business processes with models can be instrumental when providing regulatory compliance evidence. The ability to differentiate personal and sensitive data is a critical factor in remaining compliant
- Modeling the relationships between people, processes, and data can become increasingly important as a business evolves. Maintaining consistency across the business is essential to making the most of the data, conceptual, and business process models an enterprise develops.
Choosing the Right BPM Tool
Selecting the right tool is critical for creating productive BPMs. ER/Studio Business Architect contains a wealth of valuable features that set it apart from other BPM solutions. Some of the factors that need to be considered when selecting a BPM tool are:
- The ability to share models and collaborate throughout the organization.
- Creating models that integrate business processes and data which lead to more effective results.
- Customizing the models to the specifications of your business to extract the maximum value from them.
- Visibility into the personnel responsible for changes made to processes and how those changes affect other areas of the business is vitally important for demonstrating regulatory compliance.
ER/Studio Business Architect fully meets these requirements, enabling you to create BPMs that lead to improvements in many areas of your business.
An IDERA whitepaper is available that goes through an in-depth technical comparison of the features of ER/Studio Business Architect versus another tool often used for creating BPMs. The paper demonstrates how ER/Studio offers enhanced capabilities that will help you develop viable models that improve the way your business operates.
If your company wants to be more competitive in the marketplace, developing business process models is a great place to start. They can provide insight into numerous internal procedures ripe for enhancement to give your organization the edge it needs to dominate the market. ER/Studio Business Architect offers a comprehensive tool for creating BPMs that make a difference to your business.